7 steps to prepare your home for fall

When fall arrives, the change in season also means a change in home maintenance priorities. Keep your home safe and potential repair costs low with these tips.

Annual furnace maintenance helps ensure your system can keep you warm throughout the colder seasons. The best time for a tune-up is in late summer, before you switch your thermostat to heating mode.

Leave it to the pros! Due to potential hazards, furnace maintenance is not DIY work. Get a licensed professional to do a detailed inspection, lubrication, and cleaning to extend the life of your system, improve efficiency, and identify potential carbon monoxide leaks. 

Air leaks around your doors and windows can be a problem no matter the season, but they’re most noticeable when cold air starts seeping in.

Closely inspect the weather stripping on each window and exterior door. If it appears cracked, brittle, or torn, it should be replaced. You can purchase different types of weather stripping at most hardware stores, and installation is easy.

Common problems like a sticky damper or creosote buildup in the chimney can lead to serious consequences like house fires or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Have a professional inspect your chimney and fireplace once a year. Even if you don’t use your functioning fireplace, check the damper to make sure it effectively blocks out cold air.

Thick, heavy drapes add an extra layer of insulation to minimize drafts and keep rooms cozy.

Keep separate sets of window treatments handy for warm and cold weather. Be sure to choose tightly woven thermal materials for your fall and winter drapes so you get the most bang for your buck. 

It won’t change the actual temperature of the air, but reversing your ceiling fans’ spin direction can help you stay comfortable without having to crank up the heat.

Switching your ceiling fans to rotate clockwise at low speed can help redistribute warmer air trapped near the ceiling. In the summer, fans should rotate counterclockwise to create a downdraft that makes you feel cooler. Most ceiling fans have an easy-to-locate directional switch near the motor.

Swimming pools and buried sprinkler systems should be winterized properly every year to avoid unnecessary damage from lack of use and freezing pipes.

Drain, inspect, clean, and cover your pool to winterize it for the season. Similarly, sprinklers should be drained, inspected, cleaned, and stored. These tasks are time-consuming, so leave plenty of time to check them off your to-do list before the first freeze arrives.

Your rain gutters collect dead leaves year-round, but they get especially full during fall. You can avoid some of the mess by trimming back tree branches that hang over your roof.

Trim and prune any tree branches that have grown too close to your house. Consider hiring a professional for trimming near power lines, pruning high branches, or removing large, heavy branches. Then, remove large debris from your gutters and use a garden hose to flush out any remaining residue. Doing this annually can protect your gutters, roof, and siding. It also prevents ice dams from forming in winter.